Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Woohoo! A win streak!
The game that would never end, finally did. Looked like we were just going to walk on home with it in the early 4th, but an insane 4th quarter, and a series of dumb selfish plays by our bench guys, suddenly made a game of it again in the final 5 minutes. We even had to bring back a battered and bruised Cousins to lock things back up. Throw on intentional fouling and a game that looked like it was going to be 95-85 ended up 113-106 on the back of a 44-39 4th quarter. End result = still back to back wins. There are asterisks
(their starting backcourt scored 53 against us, without Bledsoe), but again, this is Sacto -- any win is a welcome one at this point.
Your Consoritum Graders tonight:
Bricklayer
Henkel
Uncia03
Capt. Factorial
Spudfan
Boxscore
Stats: 28min 11pts (4-5, 0-0, 3-3) 2reb 3ast 1stl 2blk 1TO
Mbah a Moute ( A- ) -- Last night I made the point that Mbah a Moute is kind of wasted out there if he doesn't have a dominant on-ball player to guard. Well, despite everybody on our team not named Mbah getting torched by Gerald Green last night, we went right back out there and put Mbah a Moute on P.J. Tucker again tonight, resulting in Green dropping 17 points on us by the half. Well, Malone showed that eventually he figures this sort of thing out, and he put Mbah a Moute on Green for the second half - in about 15 minutes Green scored 3 points. So it kinda worked. Luc had a good defensive night all around, not just shutting down Green in the second half but also being quite solid in team defense all game. For instance, he made a great anticipatory rotation into the lane to cut off a Gerald Green drive in the first, and he made a really nice play to smother Archie Goodwin in transition in the third. Tonight was also a great scoring night for Luc, and after missing a jumper in the first he hit his final four shots, all in the lane (once on a pick and roll, once in transition, and twice on nice feeds when he cut into the paint). This is the player I have been waiting for, and I hope his knee stays healthy. --Capt.
Stats: 20min 10pts (5-6, 0-0, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
Thompson ( C ) -- JT started the game winning the tip for the Kings (something to celebrate as it's such a rare thing to see) and on the 1st real offensive possession of the game got the ball on the right block, made his patented move, and banked it in for the 1st Kings points of the game. After those first few seconds of glory, JT sort of disappeared out there until he picked up his 2nd foul on an offensive charge while dribbling down the lane during a fast break. He didn't get back into the game until there were 4 minutes left in the half, and he was out there for about three of them and not doing much other than hitting a nice turn-around shot in the key when the defense left him and Cousins found him for the open shot. Was quiet at the start of the half, but then had his moment in the sun when he knocked down back-to-back-to-back mid-range shots to help increase the King's lead. He came out late in the 3rd quarter and didn't really see the floor after that, as the King's reserves mostly took care of business. On defense he mostly defended Frye and Frye was a waste of space out there only taking 2 shots the entire game and missing both of them. JT had to spend a lot of time on the perimeter keeping close to Frye, so he did a good job of staying close, but it wasn't much defense except staying close to Frye. During his 2o minutes of play he also managed to grab 3 rebounds. I would normally dock him a bit for the lack of rebounding, but since he was out on the perimeter most of the time guarding Frye he gets a bit of a pass, and Frye ended up with only 1 defensive rebound, so it's not as if JT's lack of rebounding translated in the Suns getting a lot of extra rebounds. So he shot the ball efficiently and did what he was asked to do by staying with Frye, so though he didn't rebound, it seems like a C type grade this time around. --Uncia
Stats: 27min 19pts (4-14, 0-0, 11-15) 12reb 2ast 1stl 0blk 2TO
Cousins ( B ) -- you know, 15 years from now Boogie is going to have games like these. He'll be older, slower, fatter, have more lingering aches and pains. But he'll still be that talented old man who physically mauls the skinny young whippersnappers who think they're all that. Boogie at his best has been flat awesome this season. Most talented player on the floor. Too strong, too quick, too much talent, too many instincts. He can dazzle. But this performance was not one of those. This performance was a slow motion mugging. I'm not even sure who was mugging who. But Cuz looked hurting, looked tired from the start. There was some of the slop to his game that he gets when he gets tired and starts making tired careless plays. And yet he is Godzilla to the Suns frontline, and with a tough guy coach who learned his trade from Jerry Sloan, the undersized Suns threw themselves at him desperately, bouncing off like bowling pins, banging, wrestling, getting physically overmatched. It was ugly. They may even have been doing Cuz a favor, as I'm not sure he had it tonight if left alone. Call it the shoulder, but the legs looked deadish too. There wasn't much explosion at the rim, his post moves seemed to lack conviction. But swarmed and attacked by angry little bees he just kept wading on in there again and again, taking and dishing huge amounts of physical abuse as bodies went flying in all directions. And there was leadership in the physical war. Whenever he was in there he took command of the middle and became a headache for the Suns. It looked like he was going to get some well earned rest and it was going to be a very short night for him as in the third the physical war turned heavily in our favor, and we started to blow the Suns out. But a silly 4th and some bad decisions by our bench eventually saw the Suns close back within striking distance down the stretch, and so back came the big guy to bounce bodies all over the place for another 3-4 min and stem the tide. This wasn't brilliant, wasn't pretty. There are few highlights. But like a power back in football, it was the sort of tough hardnosed men against boys brutality, on the boards, again and again to the line, that just wears opponents down. The 24 hours against the Suns (45pts 25reb) weren't quite as epic as the 24 hours against the Blazers (67pts 20reb?) a week or two ago, but its the same idea. After three decades Kings fans finally have the guy who kicks sand in the face of the weaklings, instead of being the weaklings ourselves. --Brick
Stats: 24min 8pts (3-7, 0-3, 2-2) 5reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
McLemore ( C ) --Ben had a couple of those highlight plays we’ve grown to love from him. The first came out a timeout and ended with Ben finishing an alley oop off of the inbound pass. The second highlight was a steal that he finished with an awesome dunk. His final made field goal was a tough turn around jumper off of a pass. That’s all we ended up getting out of him on the offensive end as he missed all 3 of his 3 point shots. The Kings as a whole shared the ball pretty good tonight which is the main reason he finished with only 7 attempts. As we all know his defense is a work in progress and it really showed for the second night in a row. Green lit him up again and scored at an insane rate. At first I wasn’t sure if he was just hot or Ben was giving him too much space… as most of the shots appeared to be contested. After Luc was switched onto Green it was pretty apparent that Ben could (should?) have been doing a better job guarding him as Green cooled down significantly. --Spud
Stats: 28min 13pts (2-9, 0-3, 9-9) 5reb 6ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Vasquez ( D+ ) -- Made sure to start this one off by dispelling any notion that lasts night terrible defense was a fluke. Dragic had his way with him early scoring the first 11 points of the game while getting wherever he wanted. The evidence is mounting, he just doesn't have the foot speed to defend his position most nights. At the same time wasn't effective on offense. Tried to go inside a bit and punish the smaller defender, but couldn't get much done. After getting broken down one last time was mercifully replaced by IT. Came back in late second and did very little of note, luckily the same could be said of Dragic. Stepped it up on defense along with his teammates as they ground down a sluggish looking Suns team to start the second half. Wasn't involved much as the offense struggled early but then started setting the table for JT with a string of assist. Kept up the momentum from that point as the offense started to pick up and Vasquez looked comfortable for the first time all night. Game back in late fourth with Cousins to hopefully steady things as momentum appeared to be shifting. Once again didn't do much, more poor defense and a contested runner that he no business taking especially with Cousins set up with great position inside. Got to the line a bunch in final minute with game out of reach for some meaningless points. While the label "pure point guard" gets thrown around with Vasquez I'm starting to wonder if "tweener" is the more accurate label. --Henkel
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We are arguably one of them.
